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Monday, January 27, 2014

Writing Annoying Characters

Holmes: Shut up.

Lestrade: I didn't say anything.

Holmes: You were thinking. It's
annoying.

—Sherlock: A Study in
Pink

Try not to write annoying
characters. Making a character unattractive is perhaps the simplest
task a writer could ever set themselves, and that is why it is so, so
easy to do exactly wrong. Instead of rendering an engaging character
who antagonizes other members of their story, writers all too often
erect effigies to annoyance itself with little else to offer the
story than a headache for everyone involved, including the reader.

Why would you want to annoy your
reader?

I have never met a
wholly annoying
person whose company I enjoyed. I have universally wished them harm,
if not at least inconvenience and distress. I have bullied them
intellectually, probably unfairly, whenever I've had the energy for
it. And these have all been real people—or so I've assumed—with
lives and families, sometimes even goals, at least those with the
capacity to imagine much beyond their next meal or text message;
imagine how unforgiving I am of fictional annoyances. How often have
the overdone antics of an annoying character made you want to throw a
book across the room and never pick it up again? Why do this to
someone else?

Hopefully by now you have shaken from the dusty storage of your brain
a number of annoying characters from books or otherwise who you feel
added to their stories; maybe you even enjoyed them greatly.
Excellent. Hold on to those examples. I suspect these characters
were not overstated. I suspect they mostly annoyed us
indirectly through their antagonism of our protagonists. Even
Lucius Malfoy, a popular and adamant pest, does not torment Harry
Potter and company beyond what we would expect of any other age
appropriate Slytherin. What is most important, though, is that the
conflict he, or other such characters bring to their stories is
interesting. We want to see how other characters will interact with
them, and potentially put them in their place.

So if you're dead set on writing an annoying character, be careful
who you are annoying, and don't over do it. Remember annoying
characters, however ridiculous or petty or twisted, are people too.
In other words, don't write annoying characters; write interesting
characters who annoy people.

Do you have any
beloved annoying characters, or can you think of any who added a good
bit conflict to the story, however minor?